Sports betting, Bobi Wine and Riparian Land in most Googled list in August

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 4 – Google has released top trending searches for the month of 2018 in Kenya with sports betting platforms dominating the list of searched items.

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The second most searched item was the English Premier League following the new season with Kenyans specifically searching EPL fixtures and real-time scores. Some of the most searched matches included Chelsea vs Arsenal, Arsenal vs Man City and Chelsea vs Man City.

The third most searched item was the former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who died on 18 August 2018 after a short illness.

Mr Annan is fondly remembered in Kenya after he brokered a peace deal between President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, that ended post-election turmoil in 2008.

Ugandan musician and politician Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu popularly known as Bobi Wine was the fourth most popular search item.

Bobi Wine was arrested in northern Uganda and his driver shot dead amid clashes between opposition supporters and security forces. His arrest sparked protests in Uganda and Kenya.

With the unprecedented drawn-out cold season in many parts of the country, many Kenyans searched for news about the weather, making this the fourth most searched term.

Riparian Land was the sixth trending item on Google, as Kenyans sought to find out the meaning of the term.

This came after authorities demolished several commercial properties that are said to have been built on riparian land reserves.

According to Nairobi city regulations, no commercial or residential property is allowed within 30 meters of a riverbank – the section of land referred to as riparian land – in order to protect the water table.

TV personality Kobi Kihara also dominated the top searches for August, at 7th position, after some Kenyans said she had lifted dozens of images from around the web and posted them on her Instagram page, claiming they were her own creations. She later deleted several images from her account and eventually diactivated her social media account.

Eighth on the list was American singer and songwriter Aretha Franklin, who died on 16 August 2018 after a long fight with pancreatic cancer.

At position 9 was Asbel Kiprop, the three-time 1,500m world champion who was recently involved in a public love triangle. A video clip of Mr Kiprop in a compromising position with a woman, said to be married, made rounds on social media platforms stirring public controversy about the athlete.

Closing the list of top ten Kenyan trending searches in August was former US Senator John McCain, who died on August 25, a day after McCain’s family announced that he would no longer receive treatment for brain cancer.

In the ‘Top How to’ category, the top trending search was “How to write a CV”, indicating a surge in the number of Kenyans either unemployed and looking for a job, or seeking a change of jobs.

The second most searched item “How to make money online” and the third “How to write an application letter”, were also career-oriented.

The fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth trending search items in this category were all about learning how to cook; cake, pilau, pancakes and spaghetti.

Kenyans also went to the Google search engine to find out “how to buy KPLC tokens”, at seventh position. This particular item has been recurrent in past top search lists.

Google Search Trends is a publicly available tool that indicates search patterns over a period of time and shows the clusters of searches that made it to the weekly trending searches in the country.